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Europol - European Commission

Update: July 2008

EUROPOL

Europol is the European Union organisation for cross-border co-operation and coordination between EU national law-enforcement agencies (mainly police, gendarmerie and customs services). Based in The Hague, Europol is essentially a central police office for the support of Member States through the collation, analysis and dissemination of information and intelligence.

“This introductory page of the Section ‘Europol’ gives a general presentation in two parts:
Part I covers the latest developments which occurred within the recent years.
Part II gives a general view of the accomplishments and the acquis at European level of the matter concerned.”

Europol’s main activities are:

  • Facilitating the exchange of information between Europol, Europol Liaison Officers (officers seconded to Europol by the Member States as representatives of their national law enforcement agencies), and national law enforcement authorities. Europol also co-operates with other EU bodies such as Eurojust, Frontex and OLAF, as well as with third States and international organisations (Interpol…).
  • Providing operational analysis in support of Member States' operations.
  • Generating strategic reports (e.g. threat assessments) and crime analysis on the basis of information and intelligence supplied by Member States, generated by Europol or gathered from other sources.
  • Providing expertise and technical support for investigations and operations carried out, under the supervision and the legal responsibility of the Member States concerned.

Europol works mainly in the following areas:

  • illicit drug trafficking
  • illicit immigration networks
  • terrorism
  • trafficking in human beings, including child pornography
  • forgery of money (counterfeiting of the Euro) and other means of payment
  • money-laundering

In addition, other priorities for Europol include crimes against persons, financial crime and cyber crime. In all cases an organised criminal structure must be involved and two or more Member States affected. The priorities for its work are established yearly by the Council, which adopts its budget and Work Programme.

At the heart of the service are a number of different databases, which help national law-enforcement agencies across the European Union to share information on known and suspected criminals, and which support Europol’s analytical activities.

Since 2006, Europol has developed a new product: the European Union’s Organised Crime Threat Assessment (OCTA). As a core product of the intelligence-led policing concept, the OCTA develops a threat assessment of current and expected new trends in organised crime across the EU.  The assessment is drawn up in order to enable the decision makers to take the appropriate action to counter the threat. in a more pro-active manner.

Europol also delivers annually the EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report (TE-SAT). The TE-SAT is an unclassified document which seeks to establish basic facts and figures and also general tendencies regarding terrorist attacks and activities in the EU.

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I) Latest developments

Following the June 2006 Council Conclusions on the future of Europol , it was decided to consider whether and how to replace the Europol Convention by a Council Decision as foreseen in Article 34(2) (c) TEU. The proposal adopted by the Commission on 20 December 2006 incorporates the amendments to the convention introduced by the three Protocols, which entered into force in March and April 2007, such as extension of Europol's mandate and tasks to cover money laundering, or the possibility for Europol to participate in joint investigation teams.

The discussions on the Commission's proposal have started on 18 January 2007 within the Europol Working Party. The Council has adopted conclusions on 12 June 2007, in which it supports the replacement of the Europol Convention by a Decision and an agreement on the text by 30 June 2008. As regards funding from the Community budget as from 1 January 2010, the Council still asks for further examination of three pending issues : lifting of immunity for Europol officials when participating in Joint Investigation Teams; the possibility for Europol staff participating in JIT to receive instructions from the team leader; clarification of the budgetary consequences, guided by budget neutrality.

Links

Further information on Europol and its activities can be found at Europol's website: http://www.europol.europa.eu

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